Awakening
by CitiKitti
Summary: Tony has been having a rough time dealing with the loss of Kate. Gibbs helps him with it. Mild slash, set s3. Mentions of episodes "Missing", "Dead Man Talking", and "Twilight".


**Awakening**

There's no such thing, Tony tells himself, as being too thorough, only thorough enough. _Five_, he counts. _Six, seven. _After the eighth time of hearing the lock tumblers click reassuringly into place, he steps back from his apartment door, grimly satisfied. This is thorough enough.

He turns round to survey his hotel-neat apartment. Tthough a touch spartan, it still seems fine, seems to be as he left it. _Was it eight? _whispers a small, niggling voice at the back of his head. _Or only seven? _

"Eight," Tony mutters, rubbing one hand over his forehead. "I counted."

Though it was now over, the day had been long and difficult. He'd been nearly twenty minutes late to work that morning, unusual for him, which would have been bad enough, but that had only been the beginning. He'd stopped on the way into work for coffee (including a "sorry-I'm-late" one for Gibbs) but they'd been out of his favourite blend. And then, to make matters immeasurably worse, upon arriving at NCIS practically the first thing Tony had done was trip on the carpet, one hip colliding painfully with the edge of Gibbs' desk, knocking his boss' coffee across the desk, the computer keyboard, several typewritten pages that had probably been very important, and finally cascading to the floor, narrowly missing Gibbs' lap.

"Sorry, boss" didn't even _begin_ to cover it.

He'd mopped ineffectually at the mess in between stammered apologies, but Gibbs had simply glared – it was a patented Category Five Gibbs glare, the worst kind – and Tony had finally slunk away to his own desk, silently counting the eight steps it took to get there.

A headslap would have been preferable – _far_ preferable, in fact – to this cold, stony silence. Tony kept his eyes on his own desk and his own computer screeen, uncomfortably aware of the weight of Gibbs' gaze pressing down on him. Usually, Tony had reflected, it was the other way around, Tony staring surreptitiously at Gibbs whenever he thought he could get away with it – which was often, not that Tony would have admitted it, even under torture. But not longingly, of course; that would be weird, wouldn't it? To stare at your tempermental, slightly frightening boss, to travel your gaze along his arms, wondering idly (and sometimes not so idly) what it would feel like to have those arms wrapped around you, to have them pull you in close and keep you there?

_Just idle thoughts,_ Tony had sternly reminded himself. Not longing, lingering ones. And definitely not, definitely never the stuff of fantasies.

After a few moments, he almost believed it.

"Boss, I..." Tony had tried again.

But Gibbs had just growled, and Tony's mouth (which was often prone to wandering away with itself) had snapped immediately shut.

It had all been downhill after that, one screwup after another, without even the hint of a case to break the monotony. There'd only been the mounds of paperwork (no one's favourite) and the constant bickering with McGee for entertainment, and by the time the workday finally wound to a close, Tony had been a tightly wound ball of tension.

"Go home, Dinozzo," Gibbs had finally growled, and Tony gratefully did just that.

And being home was good, for once.

"It _was_ eight," Tony reassures himself again, leaning his head back against the door. "I counted."

*** * ***

"Do you know what it's like," Vanessa had asked him, "to watch your friends die? To sleep with their corpses?"

She was insane, of course, insane and rabid with it. The madness spilled out of her like a flood, and Tony wondered how he'd ever missed it, though now the answer's painfully clear. He'd been swayed by the lush fall of her hair, the inviting swing of her hips, the spark of mischief in her eyes. And now? Now he pitied her, pitied what she had become, and what had made her that way.

_She played me_, he thought, a thread of bitter anger lacing through the pity. _She played me but good._

Over Vanessa's shoulder he'd caught Kate's unflinching gaze and thought with relief, _I got good people on my six._

Much later, after Ducky had a chance to exclaim and mutter over Tony's scrapes and contusions, after reports had been written (and, to Tony's chagrin, rewritten), after innumerable sugar-laden coffees, Tony had come to a decision. _I should tell her I'm glad she's on my side. Make her feel appreciated. She'd like that. Kate would like that. _

But when he looked up from his desk, Kate's name on his tongue, it was already too late. Kate's desk sat empty, everything orderly and clean, and the elevator doors were just closing.

"Damn," Tony had muttered under his breath. Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow. He closed his eyes, suddenly bone-weary.

"DiNozzo!"

Tony's eyes startled open to see Gibbs' face bare inches from his own, implacable blue eyes gazing at him with just a hint of reproach. _Nice eyes, those,_ Tony thought appreciatively. He'd have liked very much to freeze that moment, and stay lost in those eyes for a long, long time. With effort he smiled tiredly and pretended he hadn't been staring.

"Yeah, boss?"

Gibbs' expression softened a fraction. "Go home. Sleep."

Sometimes it seemed Gibbs was _always_ telling him to go home. _'M not a puppy,_ Tony tried to reply, tried to work his mouth into words. He only managed a huge yawn.

_I'll tell her tomorrow._

*** * ***

"Do you know what it's like," Vanessa had asked him, "to watch your friends die?"

He did. He hadn't then, but he did now. He didn't have to look down to know that Kate was lying at his feet, eyes wide open and skyward as if cloudgazing. The bullet hole in her forehead seemed so slight, so unassuming, but the ever-widening pool of blood haloing her head assured him that the shot was both deliberate and lethal.

_Ari_, he thought, letting the fury well up inside him. _That bastard._

Eight whole seconds ticked by before Tony realised that the sticky warmth on his face was a fine spray of Kate's blood. When he finally remembered to breathe, the still air was full of the coppery tang of it. He tried to breathe shallowly.

Gibbs, though... Gibbs' expression was completely unreadable, his eyes ice.

_I won't have to kill Ari, _Tony suddenly understood. _Gibbs will beat me to it, beat us all to it._ The thought is coldly comforting.

*** * ***

The ring of his phone is what wakes Tony from his doze. He fumbles it out of his pocket, nearly dropping it in his sleep-muddled state. By the third ring he's only slightly more alert.

"Yeah, DiNozzo," he answers by rote, hoping he sounds less stupefied than he feels.

It's Gibbs, of course, checking in on Tony like he's ten years old instead of a thirty-something senior field agent. "I'm fine," Tony mumbles into the phone. "Came home. Slept. Like you said."

"Not like you to do what you're told, DiNozzo," Gibbs retorts. "Are you gonna open the damn door now or do I have to break it down?"

Tony sits up abruptly, sleep sliding away a little more, one hand automatically reaching up to smooth the hair stubbornly sticking up on the back of his head. "What?"

"Don't make me say it again!"

Pushing himself off the couch, Tony stumbles to the door and unlocks it. Gibbs is there, scowl and all.

"Knocked three times," Gibbs said. "_Were_ you sleeping?"

"Uh, yeah." Tony's head feels full of cobwebs. Belatedly he realises he's still talking into his cell phone. Clicking it off, he moves aside to let Gibbs pass.

He's still tired, half-swaying on his feet. Gibbs is speaking to him, but Tony's distracted by the door. The lock, of course, it's the lock. It's... well, it's unlocked. Eight times to be sure, like always, and then checked. And he's tired, Tony's tired, so maybe he should check it again.

There's an arm around him, warm and tight, and a voice like soothing honey in his ear. "Tony, let it go."

_Five. Six._

"Tony."

_Seven_.

"DiNozzo, it's locked."

_Eight_.

"Now, _now_ it's locked," Tony murmurs, only half-heartedly protesting as Gibbs gently pulls him back from the door. He yawns again. "Eight times. Has to be."

"Yeah?" Gibbs' eyebrow quirks up in amusement. "Who says?"

Tony blinks, unconsciously settling into the warm curve of Gibbs' hold. "Kate says."

He feels Gibbs' grip tighten almost imperceptibly. "Tony," Gibbs murmurs in Tony's ear. "Kate's dead."

Tony turns around to face his boss. "I know that," he explains patiently. "I know."

"Then why...?"

Tony shrugs. It's a measure of security, of course, of safety. Ari's been dead for some time now, but you can never be too safe, never too thorough. Here in the circle of Gibbs' arms... Well. This feels pretty damn safe too which, while not entirely unexpected, was still fairly surprising, and not something you exactly blurt out to your boss, even when he's wrapped himself around you like some kind of blanket or sweater or --

"DiNozzo, focus!"

"Focusing, boss." _Trying_ to focus, anyway, and doesn't that have to count for something?

It's actually surprising, that first touch of lips, tentative at first but growing more insistent as Tony's own body quite happily responds. It's a delicate kiss, a gentle kiss even, yet oddly intimate in a way that makes Tony's pulse quicken and his breathing catch.

He decides he's dreaming. He _must_ be. This stuff doesn't happen to Tony, not in real life. And this is a very good dream indeed. (He just hopes it's not going to turn into that dream he had the other night, the disturbing one where Ducky walked in on him & Gibbs, a lime-green dildo in one hand and an industrial-sized tube of lubricant in the other. That had been one seriously fucked-up dream, and Tony had been whimpering when he'd awoken.)

This, though, this sweetly questing tongue, these soft yet insistent lips – this is definitely a _good_ dream.

"What was it like," Kate asks inside Tony's head, "tonguing a guy?"

_Not a guy,_ Tony chides. _Gibbs. World of difference._

And it does, he realises, it does make all the difference, that it's Gibbs' mouth that has claimed him, that it's Gibbs' hands that are stroking Tony's back, that it's Gibbs who...

_I'm not dreaming,_ Tony suddenly understands. His eyes fly open as he jerks backward. _I kissed Gibbs. I'm just a dead man._

Gibbs' own eyes are full of concern. "Tony?" he says, and Tony's sure there's an unusual note of caution when Gibbs' voice speaks his name. "Everything alright?"

There are several answers to this, Tony realises, answers like _more than okay_ and _please don't ever stop kissing me_ and _I've wanted you for so long. _Answers like _I love you._

"I'm not dreaming," Tony finally says, by way of explanation. Apparently that's the right answer, because Gibbs just smiles that enigmatic Gibbs-smile and pulls Tony close again.

"What was it like," Kate prods again, "tonguing a guy?"

_Pretty damn good_, Tony thinks. _Pretty damn good_.


End file.
